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Shiurim & Adult Education
THOUGHTS ON VAYISHLACH BY AMI JACOBS
(Ann & Gerald Barnett’s grandson currently serving in the IDF)
In the middle of this week’s Parasha we are told of the events that unfolded straight after the Prince of Shechem raped Dina, Yaakov’s daughter. Hamor the father of Shechem then approached Yaakov and his family and asked if they would allow Shechem to marry Dina. Yaakov’s children then responded (“with cleverness”) saying if you and your city have a Brit-Mila then they would allow it. All the male inhabitants of Shechem then agreed (somewhat surprisingly) to have the Brit-Mila. Then on the third day of recovery from the Brit-Mila Shimon and Laivi went down to Shechem and murdered all the males in the city and rescued their sister Dina and along with their brothers plundered the city. Then Yaakov was angry at Shimon and Laivi for he was worried about the inhabitants around him going up against them after seeing what they did to Shechem, especially since they were “few in number.”
There is a moral question that arises here: How could Bnei Yaakov (Shimon and Laivi) kill innocent people in Shechem?
The Rambam answers that in fact they were not innocent at all! As all the inhabitants were commanded to keep to all the seven Noachide laws, one of which is to set up judicial systems to make sure that people keep to the rest of the seven Noachide laws. As they didn’t keep to this law they were all sentenced to death, as they saw someone (Prince of Shechem) break one of the other Noachide laws (i.e. adultery) they should have put him to death and since they didn’t, they themselves were sentenced to death.
However, the Ramban goes to lengths to disprove the Rambam. He then argues that either indeed Shimon and Laivi were wrong in killing the members of Shechem but were right in killing Shechem, and that’s why Yaakov was angry at them. Or that they were indeed correct in killing the inhabitants as well, as they went along with what their Prince did but Yaakov thought that this exposed him to too much danger among the inhabitants around him and they would come and attack him (ie not disagreeing that this was the right thing) in which the Sefer Ha Yashar says happened!
There is another question here as to why Yaakov was seemingly very inactive in responding to what happened to his daughter. In fact the only thing we see that he did was to tell off his children after they finally did something in response!
A wonderful explanation I saw was given by Rav Shimson Refuel Hirsh. He explains that at the time Yaakov was already an old man of 97, had there been any hope in achieving justice through discussion about rights or anything of the sort, obviously Yaakov would have spoken up as his impact would have been much greater than his children. However, Yaakov’s silence shows that already beforehand he had understood how hopeless any appeal to human rights would be with them and the only way would be to resort to some sort of force which would be a matter for younger hands.
Shabbat shalom.
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